Thursday, February 19, 2009

When exactly do I have to go back to work?

This panic-inducing question seems to pop up in my head more frequently these days. But panic is a sad way to spend your days. Instead, I shall enumerate what I am doing with myself:

finished a tome.

started and finished a Dublin detective novel.

reserved one more of the Dublin novels at my library; ordered used copies of the rest of them from Amazon, because hey, I have to go back to work soon, and I need to read those books. I don't have time for the library's robot to figure out that they're missing half a dozen Dublin detective novels! for my reading enjoyment! Sometimes a girl's gotta take matters into her own hands.

played around with Adobe Illustrator because it's fun.

made a modest tiny little movie.

played around with Garage Band.

worked on an elegy.

worked on another poem.

wrote down some notes for another poem.

Re-read "Ode to Federico Garcia Lorca":

When you fly dressed as a peach tree,when you laugh with a laugh of hurricaned rice,when to sing you shake arteries and teeth,throat and fingers,I could die for how sweet you are,I could die for the red lakeswhere in the midst of autumn you livewith a fallen steed and a bloodied god,I could die for the cemeteriesthat pass like ash-gray riverswith water and tombs,at night, among drowned bells:rivers as thick as wardsof sick soldiers, that suddenly growtoward death in rivers with marble numbersand rotted crowns, and funeral oils:I could die to see you at nightwatching the sunken crosses go by,standing and weeping,because before death's river you weepforlornly, woundedly, [abandonadamente, heridamente,you weep weeping, your eyes filled [lloras llorando, con los ojos llenoswith tears, with tears, with tears. [de lagrimas, de lagrimas, de lagrimas.

re-read "Lycidas":

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once moreYe Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,And with forc'd fingers rude,Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,Compels me to disturb your season due:For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.He must not flote upon his watry bearUnwept, and welter to the parching wind,Without the meed of som melodious tear.

had lunch with my friend

saw Che (I know, you already know this, but it's my list, and it needs to be complete)

saw Confessions of a Shopaholic with my daughter

watched plenty of high-quality television

read part of an article in CCC on holy cards/immaginette (isn't that a great word?)

bought some yellow shoes

contemplated these words from Frank Bidart: "you cannot make me feel embarrassment at what I find beautiful"

took Bruiser on several walks

admired the stormy sky yesterday

felt the wet, raw edge of spring in the air

The week's not over yet, my friends. Tomorrow: breakfast with my friend, a walk with another friend, an appointment with the historian, then movies! and vegetables with Chad! and visiting my grandson! and the Oscars over at my daughter's! Moreover I have plans to consider the following:

3 comments:

I would say never go back to work, but we need you, so you must. You must! But not yet, no...I've been writing some poems, since I've been teaching...not all of them bad, so that's something.When do we get to see your movie?

Thing 1. Maybe you resist the high culture because it seems to involve rubbing elbows with the fur-covered, be-jeweled, blue-white hair crowd, who, cliched as that sounds, really do attend. But I'm here to tell you that when the curtain rises, they disappear as the beauty of the performance wraps itself over all of your senses.

Thing 2. What a wonderful year for you--reading, reading, reading, writing, writing, writing, walking, dogtime, movie-making. Time for all of this and more. So deserved and good for you.